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Tony Alamo -- A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
There are false teachers that speak lies in the name of Christ. They break the 2nd Commandment by passing on their own ideas by using God’s name; this is why they are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Because they are of the world, the world will flock to them in large numbers. By testing their teaching by what God teaches in his words we will recognize them as false prophets who, following their own visions, run even thought they are not sent by God. Pastors as watchmen of God’s people need to speak, lest they are called dumb dogs by God because they jeopardize God’s flock by their silence (Is. 56:10-11; Jer. 23:21, 25-29; Mat. 7:15-20; 1 John 4:1-6).
On Sunday, December 3, 2006, there was a full-page ad in the Minneapolis Star Tribune (page B5) paid for by “World Pastor” Tony Alamo and part of a national media campaign by this man and his organization, Tony Alamo Christian Ministries Worldwide of Texarkana, TX. In it, Alamo recounts his conversion experience and urges his readers to pray what is a version of what’s known as the “sinner’s prayer” to ask Jesus for forgiveness and to ask him to come into one’s heart.
Who is Tony Alamo? Tony Alamo, born to Jewish immigrants as Bernie LaZar Hoffman in Missouri, according to his own accounts, was a top Hollywood marketing agent for many well-known actors and singers. In 1964, however, he claims to have been converted to Christianity by meeting Jesus in person in a Beverly Hills office. He married a woman later known as Susan Alamo and started a church in Hollywood to help people on the streets. In 1975, the couple moved to Dyer, AK, near the home of Susan; their church became headquarters for a network of businesses. However, in 1975, Alamo was charged with violation of federal labor laws and, later, with tax evasion, which led to his conviction in 1994; he was released after over four years in federal prison. During his prison time and after he continued his “ministry,” which at one of its campuses in Fouke, AK, is known for its secrecy. In 1982, his wife died of cancer; a few years later, in 1995, a court battle ensued between Alamo and one of Susan’s daughters over the possession of the corpse; Alamo had to return the corpse that had been hidden by faithful followers in a secret location.
We do not hold a troubled life against a person. A person’s life does not necessarily decide over the truth of his teaching. This is why we must ask: What does Tony Alamo, who calls himself “World Pastor,” actually teach and how does it hold up to God’s word? Based on his newspaper ad, “Dry Bones,” and on recent interviews, the following picture emerges: Asked for the heart of his message, Alamo in a recent interview mentioned the corruption of government and the worldwide conspiracy of the Vatican to control all governments and religions (he also seems to believe that 9/11 is the result of a conspiracy of Pres. Bush with Muslim terrorists). Now, we are certainly all against corrupt public officials and applaud those who strive to battle corruption in public service. But to call government simply corrupt and of the devil? That’s not a Christian option since Scripture teaches us to appreciate even the imperfect government of non-Christians as God’s gracious gift for our good and to pray for those in authority over us (Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Tim. 2:1-2). Furthermore, the Catholic Church certainly teaches many things that are against God’s word; Martin Luther remains condemned as a false teacher; and the teaching of the gospel of full and free salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone remains condemned by this church. This is the sad truth. But to see the Vatican behind all evil in the world? This is wrong and reminiscent of the militant anti-Catholicism of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century. Would we not expect a Christian minister to have the gospel of Jesus Christ at the “heart of his message” instead of wild conspiracy theories? Something clearly is lacking that should warn us not to listen to this man. Indeed, the gospel of free salvation in Christ Jesus is so central that an organization that does not have it at its center cannot rightly call itself a church. It may still do good – then we commend it for that. But it is not a Christian church.
What does Alamo say about how people are saved? In his newspaper ad, Alamo talks about God, Jesus, Spirit, sin and salvation so many times; he quotes so many Scripture passages, that it could appear as if he got the gospel right. It might not really be at the core of what he’s all about, some might say, but isn’t he at least preaching the pure gospel? The short answer is: He is not. There are number of things in his account of how we are saved that clearly show that he believes in “synergism,” that is, God and man working together to accomplish man’s salvation. This is totally opposed to God’s word that teaches that we are saved by faith in Christ alone, not by the good works the law requires all men to do (Rom. 3:28).
First of all, Alamo believes that he has been converted by Christ directly, without God’s word: he met Jesus “personally,” he says, “in a Beverly Hills office.” In other words, he claims he had a direct encounter with the Spirit of God which resulted in a deep experience of God’s power and his own sinfulness. This is how he claims God to have “proved” to him that he and Jesus exist. He is commissioned to preach repentance to the folks in the office lest he die. He is then also shown heaven and hell, which leads Alamo to the following comment: “I knew which one I would be going to if I didn’t do what he said … and it wasn’t Heaven.” A little later in the ad he writes: “By my faith in Jesus and the blood He gave for me, and by my faith in the words of God which I heard and obeyed, I felt that every sin I’d ever committed lift off of my soul.” Certainly, obedience has its important place in the life of the Christian (Rom. 6); but this does not make it the key reason for our salvation! We are saved only by what Jesus has done for us in his life and death – not by what Jesus has done and by what we do! This distinction is absolutely crucial because it decides our eternal destiny. We can’t trust in Jesus in addition to our good works. Jesus’ blood does not only take care of the sins done before we became Christians (1 John 1:6-2:2). He wants us to trust in him alone. For Jesus not only paid for our sins on the cross; he also lived a perfect life under the law for us (Gal. 4:4-5). Through the gospel, Jesus bestows this perfect righteousness on us as well. By faith in Christ, we not only receive forgiveness (“clean slate”); we also lay hold of Christ’s perfect righteousness before our heavenly Father (Rom. 3:22-26).
Another problem area in Alamo’s teaching is the power and purpose of God’s word. He has nice things to say about the power of God’s word. This is certainly commendable. Yet as for his own conversion, there was no biblical word of God involved. It took place in an office, directly; additionally, later he was granted interesting visions of heaven and hell – and of UFOs. The latter, for Alamo, are supernatural beings, angels, that show that the end of the world is at hand. Alamo then apparently also felt that this alleged direct, apostle-style commissioning to preach the gospel gave him the freedom to start up his own church since, as he put it, Christ was not in the other churches he visited. It apparently also authorized him to teach his own blend of teachings, with far-out conspiracy theories at the center and with a woman (his wife) as “the main preacher” of his “ministry” (is 1 Tim. 2:12 no longer part of God’s word then?). Did God indeed call Alamo? As far as we can tell, he did not. God would never call a false teacher, a teacher that doesn’t keep the pure gospel of Jesus Christ at the center! The apostle Paul is very blunt at this point (Gal. 1:8): “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” Everybody can say that they were called by God in such an extraordinary fashion. Let them prove it by teaching God’s prophetic and apostolic word in all its truth and purity. Let them also prove it, if they can, by miracles. Former Hollywood man Alamo has so far failed on both counts.
Taking a closer look at Alamo’s “experience” of God’s power in the word, it seems that the power he’s feeling is really more the power to do good and stop sinning. The way he describes it, that power seems to “feel,” frankly, quite oppressive and threatening at times. What is missing here, again, is any sense of distinguishing God’s law and God’s gospel! The law in God’s word is indeed God’s power to condemn us to hell; yet the gospel is the power to bring us to heaven for Christ’s sake alone (Rom. 1:16). This gospel-power is really what’s missing in Alamo all along. This is why he doesn’t speak of baptism in a front-and-center manner. He never shares with the readers whether he was ever baptized; simply quoting Mark 16:16 at the end of a full-page ad is simply not enough. For in and through baptism, not by some direct operation of the Spirit as Alamo “experienced” it, Christ himself washes us clean from all our sin, clothes us in his righteousness, and thus saves us (Eph. 5:25-27; Gal. 3:26-27; 1 Peter 3:21). In and through the absolving words of fellow Christians, of our pastor, Christ bestows his saving forgiveness on us (John 20:22-23). In and through the Lord’s Supper Christ does the same (Mat. 26:26-28).
None of these saving doctrines of grace we’ve learned from God’s word and the Small Catechism are ever mentioned by this man Alamo who claims to be called directly by God! Is God trying to deceive his church? If anything, God is permitting this man to stand and distribute his lies into our homes so as to test us, to see whether we abide by the faith once and for all delivered to the saints or whether we follow Alamo and others false prophets like him after their self-made gods (1 Cor. 11:19; Deut. 13:1-3). Let us beware here of the leaven of these false teachers, whether it comes to us in the newspaper, on TV, radio, or internet. A little leaven of false teaching leavens the whole lump; this is the clear warning of God’s word (Gal. 5:9).
Because Alamo really doesn’t know anything about the gospel, he, at the end of his lengthy ad, points the sinner, not to the gospel of Jesus Christ, but to saying a prayer! When a sinner is struck by God’s law we proclaim the gospel to him, we absolve him of his sins according to the word of Jesus Christ! In this way, by means of the gospel, the unbeliever receives the Holy Spirit; and first in the power of the Holy Spirit he then believes the gospel and prays to God (Gal. 3:2; Rom. 8:26). Dead in sin, he cannot believe in or come to God by his own powers (Eph. 2:1-3; Rom. 10:13-17). God needs to come to him to make him alive spiritually. To do that, he comes in the gospel. This is what even we Christians practice every Sunday at the beginning of Church: we confess our sin and pray for forgiveness (we can pray because we already have the Spirit); but then our pastor, in Christ’s stead and by his authority, answers this prayer by forgiving us all our sin! God doesn’t want us to just cry out into some endless void until we “feel” that he has forgiven us. God wants us to hear the gospel; because it’s by preaching the gospel, not by “feeling” his grace, that God creates faith in Christ in our hearts – and this faith then knows for sure that God is gracious and hears prayer. Feelings are deceptive and unstable; God’s word cannot lie and it never changes.
What Alamo deceptively did not include in his ad he readily supplies on his website which contains the full version of “Dry Bones.” There the reader learns, after having prayed his “sinner’s prayer,” that this prayer was actually only “the first step in a series of five steps which are necessary to receive salvation.” I always thought that if and when we have Jesus Christ by faith in the gospel we then also have received salvation. But that’s true only when you believe that we are saved by faith in Christ alone. Alamo doesn’t believe that, as he’s already shown in his ad. Now he comes right out and says: in addition to praying, you also MUST: “deny yourself and take up the cross daily for the purpose of mortifying yourself … [resurrect] from the satanic life of Adam unto the sinless life of Christ … [ascend] into a position of authority to reign for God on earth, and … reign for God on earth to the end for the purpose of bringing about the kingdom of Heaven on earth.” In short, “you must learn the Word of God, then submit yourself and do what the Word says.” The word of God, for Alamo, indeed only contains what he calls a “plan of salvation,” not really salvation itself: it only tells us what we need to do to be saved.
Here I can only say: good luck! In other words, this is rank legalism! All the nice talk about Jesus and faith was only a deceptive façade, a storefront, to lure in the gullible and clueless. It was only the sheep’s skin meant to hide the ravenous wolf. For here Alamo’s basically saying that you have to lead a sinless life to be saved. And not only that, Alamo also teaches that it is “necessary” for your salvation that you achieve a position of authority in the world to prepare the world for God’s return, in fact, to bring about God’s heaven on earth. And necessary is what you really must have, like oxygen in outer space. – I don’t know about you, but when I look at history, whenever people wanted to establish heaven on earth, the result always was hell. You can look at Soviet Communism and what came of it. But you can also look at certain groups already in the 16th century: Luther called them “enthusiasts,” because they, deceived by charismatic leaders claiming great “spiritual” visions of the end times (see the parallels?), wanted to build a perfect community on earth consisting only of the “real” Christians who claimed that they didn’t sin anymore. In both cases, horrible abuses were the result and many lives were destroyed both physically and spiritually. Is it a surprise that former members of Alamo’s group allege such abuses?
God doesn’t want us to build a paradise on earth. God wants to prepare us for his return when He, not we, will establish a new heaven and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. God prepares us every day for heaven by means of his word in law and gospel, showing us our sin and error but also showing us Jesus Christ, our Savior from sin and eternal destruction. God comes to us in his word and sacraments to make us ready by saving us from our sins for the sake of his Son, Jesus Christ. This is how he continues to cleanse his holy bride, the Church, until she finally, on the Last Day, will come down from heaven, perfectly shining in Christ’s own perfection and glory (Rev. 21).
The Season of Advent is all about God’s coming to his poor humble bride on earth to prepare her for heaven. We know where to look for his coming: until the Last Day, he comes in his word, in baptism, and in the Lord’s Supper. By these means, God will preserve his little flock in the one true faith until death, and we won’t be deceived by the many false prophets, by these wolves in sheep’s clothing, who are now on the loose and who tell us to look for Christ elsewhere, namely, in their visions or amazing experiences (Mark 13:21-23). May our triune God in his mercy keep his holy Church steadfast in his holy Word, lest we think that we, lacking dramatic “visions,” have to make do with second-class Christianity.
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